- "The Iraqis did not know the names of the candidates
for whom they were supposedly voting. What kind of an election is anonymous!"
-
- "This thing was more like a referendum than an election.
It was a referendum on which major party list associated with which major
leader would lead parliament.'
-
- "Many of the voters came out to cast their ballots
in the belief that it was the only way to regain enough sovereignty to
get American troops back out of their country."
-
-
- I'm just appalled by the cheerleading tone of US news
coverage of the so-called elections in Iraq on Sunday. I said on television
last week that this event is a "political earthquake" and "a
historical first step" for Iraq. It is an event of the utmost importance,
for Iraq, the Middle East, and the world. All the boosterism has a kernel
of truth to it, of course. Iraqis hadn't been able to choose their leaders
at all in recent decades, even by some strange process where they chose
unknown leaders. But this process is not a model for anything, and would
not willingly be imitated by anyone else in the region. The 1997 elections
in Iran were much more democratic, as were the 2002 elections in Bahrain
and Pakistan.
-
- Moreover, as Swopa rightly reminds us all, the Bush administration
opposed one-person, one-vote elections of this sort. First they were going
to turn Iraq over to Chalabi within six months. Then Bremer was going to
be MacArthur in Baghdad for years. Then on November 15, 2003, Bremer announced
a plan to have council-based elections in May of 2004. The US and the UK
had somehow massaged into being provincial and municipal governing councils,
the members of which were pro-American. Bremer was going to restrict the
electorate to this small, elite group.
-
- Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani immediately gave a fatwa
denouncing this plan and demanding free elections mandated by a UN Security
Council resolution. Bush was reportedly "extremely offended"
at these two demands and opposed Sistani. Bremer got his appointed Interim
Governing Council to go along in fighting Sistani. Sistani then brought
thousands of protesters into the streets in January of 2004, demanding
free elections. Soon thereafter, Bush caved and gave the ayatollah everything
he demanded. Except that he was apparently afraid that open, non-manipulated
elections in Iraq might become a factor in the US presidential campaign,
so he got the elections postponed to January 2005. This enormous delay
allowed the country to fall into much worse chaos, and Sistani is still
bitter that the Americans didn't hold the elections last May. The US objected
that they couldn't use UN food ration cards for registration, as Sistani
suggested. But in the end that is exactly what they did.
-
- So if it had been up to Bush, Iraq would have been a
soft dictatorship under Chalabi, or would have had stage-managed elections
with an electorate consisting of a handful of pro-American notables. It
was Sistani and the major Shiite parties that demanded free and open elections
and a UNSC resolution. They did their job and got what they wanted. But
the Americans have been unable to provide them the requisite security for
truly aboveboard democratic elections.
-
- With all the hoopla, it is easy to forget that this was
an extremely troubling and flawed "election." Iraq is an armed
camp. There were troops and security checkpoints everywhere. Vehicle traffic
was banned. The measures were successful in cutting down on car bombings
that could have done massive damage. But even these Draconian steps did
not prevent widespread attacks, which is not actually good news. There
is every reason to think that when the vehicle traffic starts up again,
so will the guerrilla insurgency.
-
- The Iraqis did not know the names of the candidates for
whom they were supposedly voting. What kind of an election is anonymous!
There were even some angry politicians late last week who found out they
had been included on lists without their permission. Al-Zaman compared
the election process to buying fruit wholesale and sight unseen. (This
is the part of the process that I called a "joke," and I stand
by that.)
-
- This thing was more like a referendum than an election.
It was a referendum on which major party list associated with which major
leader would lead parliament.
-
- Many of the voters came out to cast their ballots in
the belief that it was the only way to regain enough sovereignty to get
American troops back out of their country. The new parliament is unlikely
to make such a demand immediately, because its members will be afraid of
being killed by the Baath military. One fears a certain amount of resentment
among the electorate when this reticence becomes clear.
-
- Iraq now faces many key issues that could tear the country
apart, from the issues of Kirkuk and Mosul to that of religious law. James
Zogby on Wolf Blitzer wisely warned the US public against another "Mission
Accomplished" moment. Things may gradually get better, but this flawed
"election" isn't a Mardi Gras for Americans and they'll regret
it if that is the way they treat it.
-
- http://www.juancole.com
|